Viet Nam’s benchmark VN-Index slid on Thursday morning as profit taking increased and brought down most large-cap stocks.

The VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange inched down 0.07 per cent to 939.53 points.

The benchmark had rallied total 2.32 per cent in the previous four trading days.

Sixteen of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity in the blue-chip basket VN30 declined.

Among them were Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BID), consumer firm Masan (MSN), retailer Mobile World Investment (MWG), property firm Vinhomes (VHM) and PetroVietnam Power Corp (POW).

The large-cap tracker VN30-Index, however, gained 0.38 per cent to 895.55 points thanks to the growth of steel producer Hoa Phat (HPG), Techcombank (TCB), petrol station operator Petrolimex (PLX) and Vietinbank (CTG).

But even those gainers also saw their growth narrow in the morning session.

The mid-cap and small-cap trackers on HoSE fell 0.08 per cent and 0.64 per cent, respectively.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index gained 0.95 per cent to 138.80 points.

The northern market index rose total 1.18 per cent in the previous two days.

More than 283 million shares were traded on the two exchanges, worth VND5.36 trillion (US$230.7 million).

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS